Samurai Jack
S''amurai Jack'' is an American action-adventureanimated television series created by Genndy Tartakovsky for Cartoon Network. The series follows "Jack", an unnamed samurai sent through time to adystopian future ruled by the tyrannical shape-shifting demon "Aku". Jack quests to travel back in time and defeat Aku before he can take over the world. The series premiered on August 10, 2001, with a TV movie called The Premiere Movie, before ending in its fourth season on September 25, 2004, without concluding the story. A revival was produced twelve years later, resulting in a fifth season that concluded the series. The fifth season premiered on Adult Swim's Toonami block on March 11, 2017, and the series finale aired on May 20. All episodes of Samurai Jack are directed by Tartakovsky, usually in collaboration with others. The series has garnered critical acclaim, and won eightPrimetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Animated Program, as well as six Annie Awards and anOIAF Award. Premise Long ago in a distant land, I, Aku, the shape-shifting Master of Darkness, unleashed an unspeakable evil! But a foolish samurai warrior wielding a magic sword stepped forth to oppose me. Before the final blow was struck, I tore open a portal in time and flung him into the future, where my evil is law! Now the fool seeks to return to the past, and undo the future that is Aku! — Aku, in the original opening title sequence Samurai Jack tells the story of a young prince (voiced by Phil LaMarr) from feudal Japan, whose father (Sab Shimono and Keone Young) received a magic katanaused to defeat and imprison the supernatural shape-shifting demon Aku (Mako Iwamatsu). Eight years later,4 Aku escapes, and the Emperor sends away his son to travel the world and train so he can return and use the magic sword to defeat Aku. On his return, he faces and almost defeats Aku, but before he could land a finishing blow, Aku creates a time portal that sends the prince turned samurai into the distant future, with anticipation that he would be able to deal with the samurai by that time.5 The samurai prince arrives in a dystopian retrofuturisticEarth ruled by Aku. The first people he encounters call him "Jack" as a form of slang, which he adopts as his name.6 His given name is never mentioned. Most episodes depict Jack overcoming various obstacles in his quest to travel back to his own time and defeat Aku. Each time Jack nears the end of his quest, his chance slips away, forcing him to continue his journey. Settings The retro-futuristic world is inhabited by robots, extraterrestrials, talking animals, monsters, magical creatures, and deities. Some areas have advanced technology like flying cars, while others resemble ancient times or industrial conditions. What's more, Aku has brought aliens from other planets to inhabit Earth, while destroying the habitability of the alien planets. Criminals and fugitives take refuge on Aku's Earth. Mythological and supernatural creatures make regular appearances, and coexist among the technologically-advanced inhabitants. Episodes Season 1 (2001) Season 2 (2002) Season 3 (2002–03) Season 4 (2003–04) Season 5 (2017) Main article: Samurai Jack (season 5) aired on [Adult Swim. Production Development Samurai Jack was created by Genndy Tartakovsky as a follow-up to his successful series Dexter's Laboratory. Cartoon Network executive Mike Lazzo recalled Tartakovsky pitching him the series: "He said, 'Hey, remember David Carradine in Kung Fu? Wasn't that cool?' and I was like, 'Yeah, that's really cool.' That was literally the pitch."9 Cartoon Network billed it as a series "that is cinematic in scope and that incorporates action, humor, and intricate artistry."10 Influences and design The basic premise of Samurai Jack comes from Tartakovsky's childhood fascination with samuraiculture and the bushido code,11(42:56) as well as a recurring dream where he'd wander a post-apocalyptic Earth with a samurai sword and travel the world fighting mutants with his crush.12 The show is meant to evoke 1970s cinematography, as well as classic Hollywood films such as Ben-Hur,Lawrence of Arabia11(46:44) and Spartacus.13 Thematic and visual inspirations come from Frank Miller's comic book series Ronin, including the premise of a master-less samurai warrior thrown into a dystopic future in order to battle a shape-shifting demon. Similarly, the episode "Jack and the Spartans" was specifically inspired by Miller's graphic novel 300 that retold the Battle of Thermopylae.13 The Japanese comic Lone Wolf and Cub and films by Akira Kurosawa were also an inspiration.14 Broadcast The network announced the series' launch at a press conference on February 21, 2001.15 Weeks leading up to the series were accompanied by a sweepstakes giveaway sponsored by AOL in which the grand prize was a trip for four to Japan. The promotion also included sneak peeks of Samurai Jack, behind-the-scenes model sheets, as well as exclusive Cartoon Orbit cToons.16 Samurai Jack officially debuted on Cartoon Network on August 10, 2001, with the three-part special "The Beginning".17 The premiere received high praise, including four award nominations, as well as was released as a standalone VHS and DVD on March 19, 2002.91819 Cartoon Network ordered 52 episodes of Samurai Jack, which were aired as 4 seasons of 13 episodes each, as a primetime member of the Cartoon Cartoon Fridays programming block. The final episode aired on September 25, 2004. Conclusion and revival Original ending The original series was left open-ended after the conclusion of the fourth season.20 Tartakovsky said, "coming close to end of the fourth season, we're like, 'are we gonna finish it?' And I didn't know... The network didn't know, they were going through a lot of transitions also. So I decided, you know, I don't want to rush and finish the whole story, and so we just left it like there is no conclusion and then final episode is just like another episode". Art director Scott Wills added, "We didn't have time to think about it, because we went right into Clone Wars. They even overlapped, I think. There was no time to even think about it." Planned film A film intended to conclude the story of Samurai Jack had been in development at different times by four different studios. As early as 2002, Cartoon Network was producing a Samurai Jack live action feature film,1 in association with New Line Cinema. Tartakovsky said in a 2006 interview that the live action version of Samurai Jack was thankfully abandoned, and that "we will finish the story, and there will be an animated film."24 Fred Seibert announced in 2007 that the newly-formed Frederator Films is developing a Samurai Jack movie,25 which was planned to be in stereoscopic 2D with a budget of 20 million dollars. Seibert said in 2009 the film was being co-produced with J. J. Abrams'Bad Robot Productions. Sony Pictures Entertainment expressed interest in developing a Samurai Jack film in 2012. Genndy Tartakovsky said in an interview with IGN the Samurai Jack movie is in pre-production: "I've been trying so hard every year, and the one amazing thing about Jack is that I did it in 2001, you know, and it still survived. There's something about it that's connected with people. And I want it, it's number 1 on my list, and now Bob Osher, the president, is like 'Hey, let's talk about Jack. Let's see what we can do.' And I go, 'You're going to do a 2D feature animated movie?' and he's like, 'Yeah. Maybe. Let's do some research and let's see.' So it's not dead for sure by any means, and it's still on the top of my list, and I'm trying as hard as I can." Tartakovsky said the loss of Mako Iwamatsu, Aku's voice actor, would also need to be addressed.28 The feature film project never materialized, and eventually the series concluded with a fifth television season 2017 revival Main article: Samurai Jack (season 5) Samurai Jack returned to television thirteen years after the fourth season concluded. It began airing onAdult Swim on March 11, 2017. This fifth and final season was produced at Cartoon Network Studioswith Tartakovsky as executive producer.30 It has more mature elements and a cohesive story that concludes Jack's journey. The story takes place fifty years after Jack has been cast into the future, though he has not aged as a side effect of his time travel. Jack (reprised by Phil LaMarr) is in despair from the many years of fighting Aku (Greg Baldwin, replacing Mako) and from Aku's destruction of all the remaining time portals; he is haunted by warped visions of himself, his family and an enigmatic warrior on horseback.31 Jack lost his father's magic sword; Aku seems to be unaware of this fact, and has started to give up hope of ever defeating Jack, especially since Jack has stopped aging.32 Ashi (Tara Strong) and her sisters are raised by an Aku-worshiping cult to be assassins whose purpose is to kill Jack. They attack Jack and gravely injure him, but at their next encounter he kills them all except Ashi. Jack persuades Ashi that Aku is evil, and she joins Jack and helps him reclaim his sword. The two become romantically involved as they journey to defeat Aku. Aku is informed that Jack lost his sword and faces him, not knowing Jack has recovered it in the interim. Aku senses that Ashi has part of him inside her, and possesses her body to attack Jack. Jack refuses to kill Ashi, and lays down his sword in defeat. Aku takes Jack prisoner and prepares to kill him, but the people Jack helped all over the planet rally to his defense. When Jack tells Ashi that he loves her, she regains control of her mind. Ashi finds that she has the same powers as Aku and uses them to return the sword to Jack, and open a time portal to send Jack and herself to the past, where Jack destroys Aku once and for all. With peace restored and the future of Aku's rule undone, Jack prepares to marry Ashi, but she fades away as she says "without Aku, I would have never existed". The series closes with Jack secluded in a sun-lit grove of flowering trees, watching a ladybug fly free. Reception Critical reception[edit In 2004, British broadcaster Channel 4 ran a poll of the 100 greatest cartoons of all time, in which Samurai Jack''achieved the 42nd position. The show was ranked 11th by IGN for its Top 25 Primetime Animated Series of All Time list in 2006. IGN also ranked the show 43rd in its Top 100 Animated Series list in 2009. Matt Zoller Seitz, a film critic for ''RogerEbert.com and television critic for Vulture, considers Samurai Jack, along with Tartakovsky's Star Wars: Clone Wars, to be a masterwork and one of the greatest American animated shows on television, mainly for its visual style: Samurai Jack would later be included in Seitz and Alan Sepinwall's 2016 book TV (The Book) as an honorable mention following the 100 greatest television series of all time.